For delivering messages over long distances or among international countries, several communication systems have been developed by those skilled in the art. A first communications system is the traditional telephone communications system using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). A second communication system is the recently developed system using Voice Over Internet Phones (VoIP) for voice phone calls. The third communication system is the common e-mail transmission, which is used by millions everyday. A fourth communication system is known as Fone2web™, also referred to as Phone2web.
As known to those skilled in the art, Fone2web™ is an internet voice communication system that enables telephone users to exchange voice messages with personal computer users. The system bridges phone users to the internet for voice communications with e-mail users. It has been developed by Fone2web.com in Silicon Valley, Calif., and includes a Chincom Group Corporation as a China division. In this type of system, it is possible to use phone-to-phone, phone-to-PC, and PC-to-phone communications.
In a phone-to-phone communication, a voice message is sent to another Fone2web™-by-phone user over the internet. A server accepts the message, routes the message to another server nearest the destination, and drops the message to the recipient's Fone2web™-by-phone box. In this system it is also possible to use a telephone to send a voice message to anyone in the world who has a regular e-mail box. The voice message will be delivered to the recipient's regular e-mail box. The recipient would see the icon for the voice message and click the attachment file. At this time, a “phone-to-web VE mailer™ will appear and play the message. It is also possible to send voice messages to any e-mail box in the world, and also broadcast to a list of audiences. Messages can also be stored.
Ordinary long or international distance phone calls provide a convenient and high quality two-way communications for millions of everyday users. This type of communication system, however, is still expensive because it uses circuit switching techniques with expensive digital switches and sometimes local loop carriers. VoIP, on the other hand, uses economy packet switching to communicate, but requires expensive equipment, making this communication system prohibitively expensive in some cases. Also, the quality of the voice is poor in comparison to standard long distance or international calls.
As those skilled in the art understand, e-mail has been the most successful application on the Internet. It is inexpensive and provides faster delivery than ordinary mail. An e-mail user only requires a computer connecting to the Internet in some manner. It still typically requires the use of computer for e-mail communications, however.
In recent years, many efforts have been placed on using cellular phones or a personal digital assistants (PDA) to send/receive e-mail messages to obtain greater mobility to a user. But this is still not as convenient as sending voice. In particular, keying Chinese characters on a cellular phone or PDA is very difficult. Although recent developments of Fone2web™ delivers voice messages through the Internet, the system is expensive, and the delivered voice message is stored in a voice-mailbox. The receiver must retrieve the message by calling a voice-mailbox. The calling of a voice-mailbox is not convenient and prompt for some users.